Article by
Colville Mounsey

Published on
July 3, 2018

The island’s largest public sector trade union is giving a stern warning to Government that immigration officers will not spend a single minute past Emancipation Day in the condemned Careenage House, Wharf Road headquarters.

Not for the first time, a scheduled move to new offices at the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc (BTI) car park on Princess Alice Highway has been delayed because the complex is not ready to house the workers.

After four missed deadlines, the contractors had given a firm commitment that the new headquarters would have been completed by the end of June this year, more than a year behind schedule.

NUPW General Secretary Roslyn Smith told Barbados TODAY the union was now being given a new date of August 1, to allow the contractors an additional three weeks to fix some “niggling issues” relating to air quality.

Smith warned that the workers were simply fed up with the many postponements and would give Government one last chance, after which they would not return to the environmentally unhealthy headquarters.

“We were given an undertaking that the keys would be handed over to the Ministry of Housing in three weeks. So I am expecting things to be expedited so that the workers could be moved in by August,” the union official said.

“I find that work is moving way too slowly and that is what made me decide to have this meeting. However, it seems as if they keep moving the goal post all the time and this is the last time I would be going along with it. If they go past the deadline then workers will be well within their right to stay out of that building,” Smith said.

Workers were told in April that the air ducts needed to be cleaned and the building would be ready by the end of May, making it the fourth time that workers had been asked to hold strain since the headquarters building was condemned in 2016.

In January the NUPW revealed that 35 officers stationed at Careenage House had reported various illnesses as a result of the environmental conditions and intended to sue Government for their pain and suffering. Workers had taken the decision to leave work whenever they felt conditions in the building were affecting them, but had stopped short of a full-scale walkout.

Smith said today the employees would have walked off the job after the latest missed deadline had it not been for the fact that the current headquarters had been industrially cleaned recently.

“The officers are still there because a decision was taken to industrially clean the building in order to maintain some level of environmental cleanliness. Had they not done that we would have been out of that building a long time ago. We are seeing light at the end of the tunnel but this has to be the absolute final time that we are being asked to wait,” Smith stressed.

It was back in November 2016 that then Minister with responsibility for Immigration Darcy Boyce had announced that the department would be moving to a new location by June 2017.

At the time Boyce had acknowledged that the current home of the Immigration Department was in dire need of repair but said the workers would first have to move into temporary accommodation before the renovations could begin.

“I will hold each one accountable to make sure that come June 2017 the Immigration Department can move into a brand new accommodation,” the minister had stated during the November 2016 citizen induction ceremony for 110 immigrants at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

The health -risks aside, there is a golden opportunity lurking here: If the infamous “Pierhead hotel/marina complex ” is now dead (in da water!), here is an alternative site hiding in plain sight…for an exciting sports / day-sailing, sports-fishing; historical ( The Marshall hall building, all restored) restuarant etc complex, , stretching from the abandoned Bajan Helicopter area, past where the Jolly roger etc berths, right up to this unhealthy ( and first-class in “Bajan Ugly”) useless building. Just re-rout the wharf-road BEHIND this, so as to link -up with the “harbour road” to the North-side of Carlisle House, and you have a couple acres of nice new land , accessible by boat; foot, or coach…maybe even by a mono-rail to/ from the Port too?) Don’t like the mono-rail idea? no problem; use a “choo-choo “train”…there’s two of them carrying tired-foot tourises all over hilly St. Georges , (Grenada please). Yes, dem small islands..thinking Big, yeh!!

Besides talking, what are we DOING doing to maximise our physical assets and give Bridgetown a New Life?

Madam P.M..are you there? I know you’re very busy, but cud you have a coffee and mebbe a VERY interesting chat with Mr. Paul Altman, or anyone else wid some real vision, please? Yes, Include Roger Cave too.

Archy Perch ,the UNION has not sold out its members…they sold out the DAMN LYING CUSS BIRD PARTY…it was a NATIONAL EFFORT to get rid of the DLP AT ALL COSTS..ALL hands came on deck to get rid of DEM…well done BARBADIANS and NON BARBADIANS.
The DEMOCRATIC LABOR PARTY got rid of the GUYANESE and the GUYANESE came together to get RID of DEM….well done GUYANESE.
To the DLP and their YARD FOWLS on this blog…Ever so welcome,wait for the CALL from the MASSES .

harry oh harry cant mia find some work for you? oops you have one. sit here and attack anyone who dare differs from your narrow perspective…all must be on board or else. and dont drivel and attack me. i have my own mind. i am nobody’s lackey

why does it have to be a “stern warning” though?? Public workers supposed to receive a raise of pay which they all agreed to, i thought the goal from here was to work together for the better of the people and the country. We know there are problems and it seems to me that some are being addressed, so the only thing left to say is “Madam Prime Minister”, we know you have a lot to do, but don’t forget (whoever)and wait to see how long it would take. People with overstanding know that stern warning meaning means “severe, harsh, unforgiving.” Sounds to me like NUPW members is “yardfowls”. Or are those the words of the person that wrote the article. I just tired of the negativity.

My dear Harry yes, the Guyanese, Indians, Chinese and others will take over and dominate us Bajans. We do not appreciate our black leaders so we blacks will be driven back to the canefields. Haven’t you heard the call for us to return to agriculture?